Editorial: San Rafael pot dustup another sign of disconnect

Berta Bollinger and Donald Hatt are co-presidents of Caregiver Compassion Group - a nonprofit medical marijuana cooperative with about 300 members. Their office space out of which they were operating a medical marijuana delivery service was closed down by the city of San Rafael effective Jan. 6. (Robert Tong/Marin Independent Journal)
Robert Tong

THE DUSTUP between San Rafael City Hall and a medical marijuana cooperative is just another example of the dysfunction of Proposition 215, California's medical marijuana law.

Caregiver Compassion Group, a nonprofit that delivers medical pot to several hundred people in Marin, has been forced to close by the city because the organization lacked a city permit.

It couldn't get one if it had tried.

Since 1997, San Rafael has banned medical marijuana dispensaries.

The city took action after voters in 1996 approved Proposition 215.

In Marin, 73.2 percent of voters backed Proposition 215, but too few protested local post-election bans enacted in San Rafael and other Marin municipalities.

The nagging problem with Proposition 215 is concern that it is far too easy for recreational users to obtain prescriptions. The law should have required dispensing of marijuana be handled by pharmacies and pharmacists, but because federal law considers marijuana a "Schedule 1" drug, established pharmacies are outlawed from being part of a solution.

So, they've been replaced by storefront operations, some of which appear and vanish depending on the heat they get from local government.

This cat-and-mouse routine has been going on for nearly 18 years.

The dilemma has been worsened by swings in federal enforcement, from looking the other way to threatening landlords of pot shops that government would confiscate their property.

In San Rafael, Caregiver Compassion Group opened on Woodland Avenue in San Rafael after losing its lease in Sausalito.

The group says its San Rafael office was a business office where it processed prescriptions and arranged deliveries. No "medicine" was onsite, its leaders say.

Officially, with the city shutting down the Caregiver Compassion Group's San Rafael office, there remains only one legal dispensary in Marin — Marin Holistic Solutions in Corte Madera. The town decided the dispensary would have to go after its lease expires this summer.

Local bans leave the people in limbo. Those are the people voters wanted to help with their overwhelming approval of the 1996 measure. How compassionate is it to force people for whom marijuana helps their health problems to drive long distances to get it or get it from a street-corner dealer?

Today, the political trend appears to be headed toward legalization.

Legalized pot measures have won approval in Colorado and Washington and another initiative is headed for California's ballot later this year.

A recent Field Poll shows that 55 percent of California voters now favor legalization, making it legal for anyone over 21.

Voters nationwide are ready to take this issue into their own hands. They aren't waiting for federal, state and local officials to reach a consensus.

In California, voters already have given them that chance.

The permit flap in San Rafael is just another example that there is no political willingness or leadership to provide reasonable, safe and local access to compassionate use of medical marijuana.